ABSTRACT: In alleged ritual child sexual abuse, there
is seldom any corroborating
evidence and the case hinges on the statements of young
children. Although the
behaviors alleged are bizarre and improbable, adults
accept them as true since it
seems impossible that a child would lie or fantasize
such detailed and unusual
accounts. However, crucial to assessing credibility
is a careful analysis of adult social
influence on the children involved. When children are
subjected to multiple formal and
informal interviews, sessions of therapy, and interactions
with adults who believe that
ritualistic abuse is real, the adults inadvertently
shape, mold, and reinforce the stories
and drive children into their fantasies. When this happens,
the child is likely to
internalize the details and believe in the truth of
the stories. Understanding this
process of social influence is central to assessing
the credibility of children's
testimony.

Allegations of ritual abuse of children have received
much attention in the past few
years and there has been a recent proliferation of professional
literature on this topic.
We have been consulted in approximately 15 cases involving
allegations claimed to
be satanic ritualistic sexual abuse along with others
where equally bizarre allegations
were made but no one claimed it was ritualistic abuse.
We have over a hundred
professional articles in our resource file and the number
is rapidly growing. There
have been presentations on this topic at professional
conferences, representing a
wide variety of opinions.

The evidence for satanic ritual abuse conspiracies comes
from two main sources-the
reports from "survivors" and their counselors
of "repressed" memories that were
uncovered during therapy, and allegations involving
young children, primarily in day
care cases, such as McMartin. These two different sources
are used to bolster one
another by those who believe such allegations are true.
We are limiting this
discussion to those based upon statements elicited from
young children.

In cases involving young children, the ritual abuse
allegations most often occur in a
multi-perpetrator, multi-victim situation, such as the
day care setting. However, some
children, in the divorce/custody battle of parents,
produce descriptions of abuse said
to be satanic and ritualistic. We have also been involved
in cases where both parents
were accused of ritual abuse with their own children.

Whether such allegations are true has been hotly debated
in the professional
community. There are some who believe there is a world-wide
conspiracy of Satan
worshipers who sexually molest and torture untold numbers
of children in bizarre and
sadistic rituals (e.g., Cozolino, 1989; Ritual Abuse
Task Force, 1989; Summit, 1984,
1990). Similar allegations of satanic ritualistic abuse
have surfaced in England,
Holland, Australia, and New Zealand. In England Christy
and Walton (1991) claim the
allegations there can be traced to workshops and seminars
conducted by Americans
claiming expertise in satanic ritualistic abuse.

There are others who openly look upon belief in a world-wide
satanic conspiracy as
total nonsense (Gonzales, 1990). Those professionals
who are skeptical see the
claims as resulting from collective hysteria or rumor
panics, as similar to the UFO
sightings, or as an example of urban legends that may
be firmly believed but are false (Balch & Gilliam, 1991; Best, 1991; Ellis, 1991;
Hicks, 1990, 1991; Nathan, 1991; Rossen, 1989; Victor, 1990, 1991a, 1991b, 1991c). In
this approach a major causative
factor is the current social upheaval and the resulting
ambiguity. An analysis by
Underwager and Wakefield (1991) presents an argument
that belief in these claims
represents and derives from the personal pathology of
the believer.

Lanning (1989, 1991) observes that it is impossible
for a conspiracy as complex,
including as many people, and engaging in such extreme
acts to continue without
someone talking about it. Groups that actually engage
in secret rituals and commit
murders and violence, such as the Mafia and the Ku Klux
Klan, are known very quickly
because there are bodies and someone talks. In addition,
conspiracy requires
organization. Hicks (1991a) comments about one instance
of an alleged satanic cult:

Further, in order to organize the events in which Smith
participated, the Satanists must
have shown skills of conference planning: obtaining
snakes, making robes, arranging
for members to give believable excuses to stay away
from their jobs, ensuring no
witnesses, arranging with cemeteries to exhume bodies,
having effigies made,
nabbing babies for sacrifice, efficiently cleaning up
sacrificial messes, and so on. Yet
no one could verify any of the details (p. 144).

It is poor or ineffective organization that apparently
caused the failure of the coup
attempted by the hard line communists in the Soviet
Union. These were men who
were life long bureaucrats and experienced conspirators.
The skill and competence
required to maintain the satanic conspiracy described
by the believers would have to
exceed any level ever known in history.

There are disturbed people who abuse and murder children.
The disturbance may
well include unusual religious mentation and an obsession
with strange rituals. Some
of these people may abuse a child in a bizarre and sadistic
fashion. This may
sometimes look like a satanic ritual, a possibility
that becomes more probable given
the current media attention and publicity. Therefore,
allegations of ritual abuse must
be carefully investigated and not immediately dismissed
even if one rejects the notion
of an organized conspiracy. In addition, there is always
the possibility that the child
may have been abused in some fashion, even if the ritual
abuse allegations are not
true.

In cases involving allegations of bizarre sexual abuse
of children, there is seldom any
corroborating evidence and the case hinges on the statements
of young children.
Although the behaviors alleged are highly improbable,
adults may accept them as
true, reasoning that it seems impossible that a child
would make up such detailed
accounts. In evaluating such cases, it is necessary
to carefully reconstruct the
sequence of events. The circumstances surrounding the
original disclosure and the
contact the child has had with adults must be traced
along with the statements
reportedly made by the child as the case progresses.

A false accusation is seldom a deliberate fabrication
made by a child or encouraged
by an adult, although this may happen occasionally in
divorce and custody disputes.
Instead, media coverage of sexual abuse, including adult
"survivors" of satanic ritual
abuse, widespread publication of so-called "behavioral
indicators," and proliferation of
child sexual abuse prevention programs may result in
adults becoming hypersensitive
to the possibility of abuse. The adults then question
the child and inadvertently mold,
shape and reinforce the statements about abuse.

The Growing Network of Believers

Important to understanding the development of statements
about ritual abuse in
children is the growing network of believers who regularly
interact with one another
(Hicks, 1991; Mulhern, 1991c; Victor, 1991c). Kee MacFarlane
and Roland Summit
were the first mental health professionals to advance
claims about a satanic, ritualistic
abuse conspiracy. This was based on the experience of
MacFarlane in interviewing
the children in the McMartin case (see Underwager and
Wakefield, [1991] and Hicks
[1991a] for a discussion of the influence of the McMartin
case). What is not generally
understood is that the children whose accusations were
included in the trial denied
being abused until after they were interviewed at Children's
Institute International (CII)
by MacFarlane and other staff members. The investigation
by the Manhattan Beach
police began on August 12, 1983 and got nowhere. At
the request of the District
Attorney's office, MacFarlane interviewed the first
child on November 1, 1983, almost
three months after the investigation had begun. The
McMartin case was made at CII.

By June, 1984, the CII staff had interviewed nearly
400 children who had been at the
McMartin preschool and claimed that 369 had been molested.
By this time the
allegations had grown to include bizarre and horrifying
accusations. MacFarlane
testified about ritual abuse before a congressional
subcommittee in 1984 (Bromley,
1991) and at around the same time Roland Summit urged
the National Symposium on
Child Molestation to accept children's accounts of blood
sacrifices and sadistic sexual
ceremonies as true (Summit, 1984).

When MacFarlane testified in 1984, she was asked to
support her claim of a ritual
abuse conspiracy. She said that she heard about a child
in another state giving the
same parody of a nursery rhyme and describing the naked
movie star game that she
claimed to have heard from the McMartin children. She
was referring to the
Montessori school case in Reno, Nevada (Crewdson, 1988).
What she did not tell the
committee was that early on the Reno investigators had
been in frequent contact with
the investigators in the McMartin case.

An analysis of videotapes of the interviews of children
in the Reno case shows leading
questions, coercion, and repeated attempts to confirm
the expectations of the police
investigators (Underwager & Wakefield, 1985). This
suggests that the communication
between the investigators from Reno and those in Los
Angeles is the cause of the
similarities between the elicited accounts.

Since MacFarlane and Summit's initial public statements,
conferences, networking,
and training seminars have generated a growing network
of professionals who firmly
believe in the reality of the ritual abuse claims (Gonzales,
1990). Hicks (1991a &
1991b) describes this in terms of law enforcement personnel,
whom he terms "cult
cops." The impact of satanic and ritual abuse seminars
conducted by American
"experts" in England is described by Christy
and Walton (1990). Mulhern (1991b)
systematically analyzed 14 satanic cult/ritual abuse
training seminars held between
1987 and 1990 and concludes that these seminars are
focused on converting the
participants to the uncritical belief in the realities
of such cults.

The result of these networks is that if the professional
interviewing the child has been
been to a training conference or seminar, or has otherwise
been exposed to the the
beliefs of this network and accepts them, the interviewer
may well attempt to validate
the hypotheses about ritualistic abuse. When this happens,
statements about ritual
abuse are apt to be elicited from the children.

Evaluating Cases of Alleged Ritual Abuse

Memory is Reconstruction

Understanding the nature of memory is necessary in evaluating
ritual abuse cases.
Memory is reconstruction and not recall, a fact that
is solidly established in psychology
and is supported both by laboratory studies and in surveys
(Dawes, 1988; Goodman &
Hahn, 1987; Loftus & Ketcham, 1991; Loftus, Korf,
& Schooler, 1989). Although
people introspectively believe that their memories are
a process of dredging up what
actually happened, as though a videotape had been made
in the brain and is being
replayed, in reality our memories are largely determined
by our current beliefs and
feelings. Dawes (1988) notes:

Our recall is often organized in ways that "make
sense" of the present-thus
reinforcing our belief in the conclusions we have reached
about how the past has
determined the present. We quite literally "make
up stories" about our lives, the world,
and reality in general. The fit between our memories
and the stories enhances our
belief in them. Often, however, it is the story that
creates the memory, rather than vice
versa (p. 107).

Loftus and Ketcham (1991) describe the reconstruction
process and how people can
come to believe firmly in events that never happened:

Truth and reality, when seen through the filter of our
memories, are not objective facts
but subjective, interpretative realities. We interpret
the past, correcting ourselves,
adding bits and pieces, deleting uncomplimentary or
disturbing recollections,
sweeping, dusting, tidying things up. Thus our representation
of the past takes on a
living, shifting reality; it is not fixed and immutable,
not a place way back there that is
preserved in stone, but a living thing that changes
shape, expands, shrinks, and
expands again, an amoeba like creature with powers to
make us laugh, and cry, and
clench our fists. Enormous powers  powers even to make
us believe in something
that never happened (p. 20).

Adult Social Influence

Crucial to assessing credibility in cases of alleged
ritual abuse is a careful analysis of
the adult social influence on the children involved.
When children are subjected to
multiple formal and informal interviews, sessions of
therapy, and interactions with
adults who believe that the abuse is real, the adults
may inadvertently create the
stories and drive children into their fantasies. When
this happens, the child is likely to
internalize the details and believe in the truth of
the stories. Therefore, understanding
this process of social influence is central to assessing
the credibility of children's
testimony. Although repeated and/or suggestive interviews
do not mean that a child
has not been abused, they make it very difficult to
sort out what, if anything, may have
happened. The influence of multiple interviews over
time by persons who have a prior
belief about what they think happened and who ask suggestive
questions is
discussed by several researchers in the recent APA book
edited by John Doris (1991).

A number of researchers have examined the factors of
memory development,
cognitive and moral development of children, and suggestibility
of children to adult
social influence (for discussions of this see Doris,
1991; Garbarino & Stott, 1989;
Lassiter, Stone, & Weigold, 1987; Lepore, 1991;
Lindsay, 1990; Loftus & Ketcham,
1991; Wakefield & Underwager, 1988; Underwager &
Wakefield, 1990). There is no
doubt that children can be led to produce accounts of
events that did not happen. This
does not mean that children lie, but rather they are
victimized by adult biases and
expectations (Wakefield & Underwager, 1988).

The most publicized examples of repeated, coercive interviews
have been McMartin
(Cody, 1987, 1989, 1990) and Jordan, Minnesota (Humphrey,
1985). However, we
have reviewed hundreds of hours of videotapes from cases
throughout the country
and found similar behaviors by adult interviewers in
many other cases. (We have
provided a detailed analysis and complete transcripts
of 10 representative real world
interrogations [Underwager & Wakefield, 1990]. Also,
see Bravos [1991] and Coleman
[1989b] for examples of the McMartin interviews.)

No psychological experiment could ever come close to
reproducing what is often
done in the real world when children are interviewed.
No human subjects review
committee would ever permit such a study and any psychologists
who tried to do it
would lose their license. Because a videotape or audiotape
can document the adult
behaviors toward children and show the level of coercion (DeLipsey, & James, 1988),
currently some professionals are advising against videotaping
or audiotaping in order
to prevent a defendant from knowing what the adults
did.

Assessing Interviews

The use of procedures with doubtful or nonexistent reliability
and validity adds to the
potential contamination of the interviews. These unsupported
procedures include
drawings, projective tests, play therapy, and anatomical
dolls (Dawes, 1988; Levy,
1989; Mantell, 1988; Terr, 1988; Underwager & Wakefield,
1990; Wakefield &
Underwager, 1988). The suggestive nature of such techniques
is increased when the
interviewer directs the child "to pretend."

Recent tools such as the Projective Story Telling Cards
(Northwest Psychological
Publishers, 1990) which contain explicit drawings of
ritualistic abuse, and Don't Make
Me Go Back Mommy: A Child's Book About Satanic Ritual
Abuse (Sanford, 1990) are
being used in interviewing children when satanic ritual
abuse is suspected. Both of
these contain explicit and frightening pictures illustrating
satanic rituals and are used
to encourage the child to describe the abuse. The highly
suggestive and emotionally
loaded nature of these stimuli can only increase the
probability of false positives in
developing allegations of satanic ritualistic abuse.

It is possible to interview a child in a way to get
at the truth. Several professionals
have suggested how to conduct an unbiased evaluation
and noncontaminating
interviews. (For example, see Daly, 1991 & 1992;
Quinn, White, & Santilli, 1989;
Raskin & Yuille, 1989; Slicner & Hanson, 1989;
Wakefield & Underwager, 1988;
White, 1990). Recently, there has been information on
Criterion Based Content
Analysis/Statement Validity Analysis. This is a European
procedure for interviewing
children suspected of being abused and for analyzing
the resulting interview. It
assumes that an account based on a real memory of an
actual event will differ in
content and quality from accounts that are based on
fabricated, learned, or suggested
memory. The procedure requires a relatively complete
statement obtained as soon as
possible after the child has disclosed an incident and
the interview must be designed
to obtain as much free narrative as possible and leading
questions and suggestions
must be avoided. The entire interview is tape-recorded
and transcribed for later
analysis (Köhnken & Steller, 1988; Raskin & Esplin, 1991; Rogers, 1990;
Undeutsch,
1988).

When there are allegations of satanic, ritual abuse,
the professional may be asked to
assess a case after others have interviewed the child.
If the initial evaluation and
interviews have been conducted by someone else, careful
examination of the
procedures along with an analysis of the progress of
the case is necessary to assess
possible contamination (Wakefield & Underwager,
1988; White & Quinn, 1988). When
children have been subjected to leading and coercive
interviews, the contamination
may have so affected their recollections that it becomes
extremely difficult, if not
impossible, to determine the truth. Therefore, a careful
analysis of all contacts with the
child in which abuse was discussed is necessary.

A recent example of how children can be taught to believe
they have been satanic
ritual abuse victims was in a Cook County, Illinois
case. John Fittanto was charged
with sexual abuse of two children. The judge heard several
days of testimony
including 10 straight days of testimony by a 7-year-old
girl who gave detailed
descriptions of ritual abuse with robed, singing, and
chanting adults who drugged
children, forced them to drink blood, eat excrement,
and drink urine, and performed
child sacrifice, cannibalism, and torture. The child
had undergone multiple sessions
with Pamela Klein, self-styled expert in satanic ritualistic
abuse, who was one of the
Americans conducting the seminars in England (Pope,
1991). The judge ruled that the
testimony was bizarre and incredible and that the girl
had clearly been repeatedly
coached (Hamilton, 1991).

Children's Fantasies

The content of children's fantasies include violence,
monsters, bizarre acts, and much
anxiety material. If an adult is convinced a child has
been abused, despite the child's
denials, the adult is likely to repeat questions in
an attempt to get statements about
abuse. Children, in this situation, may then answer
questions they do not understand
and about which they have no information (Hughes &
Grieve, 1983; Linkletter, 1957).
Their fantasies may supply their answers.

After over 20 years of interviewing over 15,000 children
Art Linkletter made this
observation:

". . .' Cause they have big crocodiles down there
and if people don't listen to me I can
sic the crocodiles on them.'

This bloodthirsty theme runs through the mind of many
a mild-mannered darling. It
would frighten you to know how often the curly blond
locks of a little princess cover a
head filled with mayhem" (Linkletter, 1957, p.
25).

Bloch described the fantasies of children this way:

It abounded in beasts of terrifying mien, in cruel witches
and monsters who pursued
their victims with unrelenting savagery. In those preserves
the air continually vibrated
to the rat-a-tat-tat of machine guns, corpses hung from
trees, and streams ran red with
blood. "Do you want to help me run? The monster
is after us," was the way three-and-
one-half-year-old Ellie introduced a fantasy that lasted
more than a year. . . . I was
instructed by a five-year-old in the slaughter of multitudes
by a carefully worked out
routine that inevitably ended with out dumping the imaginary
corpses over the roof
and then brushing "the blood and dirt off our hands."
I have spent many a session
being shot to death and then revived only so that I
might be shot again (Bloch, 1978,
p. 2).

Ames (1966) and Pitcher and Prelinger (1963) analyzed
the stories of young children
and found that the majority of children at every age
tell stories with themes of violence.
The findings of the two studies agreed to a marked extent.

Wakefield and Underwager (1988) observe:

In instances where children are subjected to intense
and frequent questioning and
further details are sought across a period of time the
progression of the story goes
from an initial "touching" to fondling, to
oral, genital, and anal penetration, to some
form of drug use, to pictures being taken, to monsters,
or witches, or people dressed in
strange ways behaving in a bizarre fashion (i. e., twirling
rainbow colored snakes
about the children, keeping bears, training deer to
urinate and defecate in children's
mouths . . .) to ritual killing of animals, ranging
from gerbils, birds, and squirrels to
bears, deer, lions, and elephants. The final step is
some form of violence to children,
including torture, mutilation, and murder.

This common progression, noted in cases from Alaska
to Florida and Maine to
California, suggests that repeated interviews tap into
an ever deeper layer of the kind
of fantasies children are known to have. . . . Some
professionals claim that these
stories may be true and support this claim by pointing
out the similarity of the stories
across the country. . . . But we are convinced that
this very similarity results from the
questions professionals, who are familiar with the well
publicized cases, ask the
children (p. 300).

When adults who believe in satanic ritualistic abuse
question children so as to drive
them into their most horrifying fantasies and lead them
to produce erroneous accounts
of the most perverted and twisted acts from the darkest
corners of the human mind and
soul, this is not an innocent or innocuous experience.
The effect on a child who has
not been abused at all is devastating. It is a betrayal
of the responsibility of adults to
children to teach them about reality and to assist them
to distinguish personal
fantasies from our shared common human experience.

Behavioral Indications and Checklists

A trigger for suspected sexual abuse is often one of
the so-called behavioral
indicators. Lists of behaviors believed to be caused
by sexual abuse (e.g., Council on
Scientific Affairs, 1985; Cohen, 1985; Sgroi, 1982)
have been widely disseminated
and publicized. The behaviors on the lists are extremely
inclusive; nearly every
problem behavior ever detected in children has been
offered by someone as a sign of
possible child sexual abuse. As a result, an adult may
suspect abuse when these
behaviors are observed in a child. The adult may then
question the child in a way that
elicits statements suggesting abuse.

However, there is a high probability that any normal
child might at some point show
one or more of these behaviors. The behaviors on the
lists are known stress
responses, and therefore are found in many different
situations, including conflict
between parents, divorce, economic stress, wartime separations,
father absence,
natural disaster, physical, emotional, but nonsexual
abuse, or almost any stressful
situation children may experience (Emery, 1982; Hughes
& Barad, 1983; Jaffe, Wolfe,
Wilson, & Zak, 1986; Porter & O'Leary, 1980;
Wallerstein & Kelly, 1980; Wolman,
1983). Children who are distressed for whatever reason
may show their distress in a
variety of ways. There are no behavior or set of behaviors
that occur only in victims of
child sexual abuse.

Therefore, relying on behavioral indicators to assess
possible sexual abuse will likely
result in mistaken decisions. Levine and Battistoni
(1991) note that none of these
indicators, in any combination, have been found to be
valid without a direct statement
by the child about sexual involvement or sexual knowledge.
Besharov (1990) points
out that the behavioral indicators, by themselves, are
not a sufficient basis for a report.

Even age-inappropriate sexual play or knowledge, which
is thought to be a more
reliable sign than other behavioral indicators, cannot
be used as proof of abuse. What
children normally do sexually is more frequent and involved
than most people assume
(Best, 1983; Gundersen, Melas & Skar, 1981; Martinson,
1981). Friedrich, Grambsch,
Broughton, Kuiper, & Beilke (1990) asked mothers
of 880 nonabused 2- to 12-year-
old children to complete questionnaires concerning sexual
behavior. Although
behaviors imitative of adult sexual behaviors were rare,
the children exhibited a wide
variety of sexual behaviors at relatively highly frequencies.

Special checklists said to indicate satanic or ritual
abuse have been distributed and
used by social workers and police officers investigating
ritual abuse claims. The most
widely circulated of such checklists was developed by
Catherine Gould who lists
"symptoms characterizing satanic ritual abuse not
usually seen in sexual abuse
cases" (Hicks, 1991, p. 245). Gould's checklists
are promulgated through cult
seminars across the country and contribute to the identification
of children as having
been ritually abused (Hicks, 1991).

Many of the items on Gould's checklist have the same
difficulties as do the more
traditional lists of "behavioral indicators"-most
of the symptoms are innocuous and
common to growing up. A few, such as semen stains or
venereal disease, are
legitimate signs of sexual abuse but cannot be used
to infer that the abuse was
satanic or ritualistic. However, if a child shows some
of the signs on the checklist, the
interviewer using such a list is likely to come to premature
closure about the reality of
the ritual abuse and interview the child in a way geared
to confirm these suspicions.

To use nondiscriminatory signs to make a discrimination
is a logical error that
increases the likelihood of false positives. It is also
a mistaken notion of covariance
and correlation and will lead to false notions of causation.
Checklists that advance the
idea there are indicators that can be used to make a
classification decision but do not
provide any empirical, quantifiable data to demonstrate
such claims will not lead to
accurate decisions.

Assessment of the Accused

Although there is no "profile" of a child
sexual abuser, there are characteristics
associated with people known to sexually abuse children.
Most known child molesters
have difficulties with impulse control and many are
inadequate, lacking in self-
confidence, and have deficiencies in their ability to
establish satisfying and
appropriate intimate relationships. In general, the
more deviant the behaviors
committed by the abuser, the less likely it is that
the person committing the abusive
acts will be psychologically normal (Wakefield &
Underwager, 1988).

There is no research on the personality characteristics
of ritual abuse offenders.
Therefore, evaluating persons who have been accused
of satanic ritual abuse is
based on common sense and past experience with known
perpetrators of sex
offenses and homicides (see Rogers, 1991, for an excellent
discussion of this). If the
behaviors alleged are highly deviant, such as inserting
lighted candles and other
objects into the anuses and vaginas of children, engaging
in defecation and urination
as part of the abuse, torturing animals and children,
and murdering and eating
children, we would expect the perpetrator to be highly
disturbed.

In contrast to this, a common finding in the allegations
of ritualistic abuse involving day
care centers is that the alleged perpetrators do not
fit any known pattern of sexual
abusers. David Finkelhor and his colleagues (Finkelhor,
Williams, & Burns, 1988; Finkelhor, Williams, Burns, & Kalinowski, 1988),
in a national study of 270 day care cases,1 report that 40% of the perpetrators were women.
These women tended to be
intelligent, educated, highly regarded in their communities,
and not likely to have a
history of known deviant behavior. Many of these apparently
normal women were said
to have engaged in extremely deviant, low frequency
behavior, including oral-genital
penetration, urolagia and coprophagia, and ritualistic,
mass abuse. Hicks (1991)
observes: "To maintain, then, that day-care matrons
constitute sexual deviates who
prey upon children is to create a new kind of criminal"
(p. 217).

Therefore, in assessing the credibility of children
in ritual abuse cases, the
characteristics of the perpetrator must be considered.
If the behaviors alleged are
highly deviant and sadistic and the individual accused
is psychologically normal with
no history of deviancy or unlawful behavior, the discrepancy
must be considered. It is
highly unlikely that a normal, functional, nonpathological
individual would engage is
such behaviors.

Case Examples

As a way of illustrating how ritual abuse allegations
may develop and grow and of
illustrating the type of analysis which must be made
in these cases, we are presenting
three case studies. The first is a day-care type case
which is similar to those such as
McMartin which are prototypes of ritual abuse cases
involving young children; the
second involves allegations against parents in an intact
family; and the third involves
allegations which arose in a divorce and custody battle.
In describing these cases we
have disguised the identities. However, each detail
and each allegation is taken from
an actual case.

Cases involving allegations of child sexual abuse are
complicated and difficult to deal
with. All professionals in the field acknowledge that
children are abused, sometimes in
horrifying ways. Although there is no empirical evidence
for the existence of organized
multigenerational cults which ritually abuse and torture
children, each case must be
carefully evaluated since there is always the possibility
of more ordinary abuse
underlying the bizarre allegations or even a highly
disturbed individual sadistically
abusing a child in what may appear to be a satanic ritual.

Each case must be evaluated in terms of the quality
of the child's statement, the
circumstances under which the allegations surfaced,
the characteristics of the person(s) accused, and the nature of the alleged abusive
behaviors. In addition, the
progress of the case over time and the adult social
influences on the children must be
carefully studied in order to understand how the allegations
developed. It is our
experience that when there are allegations involving
ritual abuse, animal and human
sacrifice, blood, urine, and feces, and murder and cannibalism
of children, the most
parsimonious explanation is that believing adults inadvertently
taught such accounts
to the children.

The impact of developing such accusations by adult behaviors
that influence
nonabused children to produce fabricated accounts of
abuse must be considered.
Surely a concern for children should lead to every possible
effort to increase accuracy
and avoid severely harming children through adult bias
and stupidity.

1. The Finkelhor et al, study has been harshly criticized for its methodology,
especially the fact that it includes an indeterminate number of cases, such as
McMartin, which ended in dismissals or acquittals, or convictions that were
later reversed. See for example, Coleman (1989a), Wakefield and Underwager
(1991), and Nathan (cited in Hicks, 1991). [Back]